Chernobyl is about 90 kilometres (56 mi) northeast of Kiev, and approximately 140 kilometres (87 mi) southwest of the Belarusian city of Gomel.

The city was evacuated on April 27, 1986 due to the Chernobyl disaster at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, located 14.5 kilometres (9.0 mi) north-northwest, the most disastrous single nuclear accident in history. The power plant was within Chernobyl Raion, but the city was not the residence of the power plant workers. When the power plant was under construction, Pripyat, a city larger and closer to the power plant, had been built as home for the power plant workers.

After the accident the Chernobyl Raion administration was transferred to the neighboring Ivankiv Raion. Though the city today is mostly a ghost town, a small number of people reside in houses marked with signs stating that the "Owner of this house lives here".[1] Workers on watch and administrative personnel of the Zone of Alienation are stationed in the city on a long-term basis. There are two general stores and a hotel for tourists. Before its evacuation, the city had about 14,000 residents.[2] The city of Slavutych, specifically built for those evacuated from Pripyat, also received the population relocated from Chernobyl.

Contents

The city's name is the same as a local Ukrainian name for Artemisia vulgaris (mugwort or common wormwood, which is чорнобиль or "chornobyl").[3] An alternative etymology holds that it is a combination of the words chorniy (чорний, black) and byllia (билля, grass blades or stalks), hence it would literally mean black grass or black stalks.

Chernobyl had a rich religious history. The Jews were brought by Filon Kmita, during the Polish campaign of colonization. The traditionally Christian Eastern Orthodox Ukrainian peasantry of the district was largely forced, by Poland, to convert to the Greek Catholic Uniate religion after 1596. Yet the vast majority returned to Eastern Orthodoxy after the Partitions of Poland.

The Dominican church and monastery were founded in 1626 by Lukasz Sapieha, at the height of the Counter-reformation. There was a group of Old Catholics, who opposed the decrees of the Council of Trent. The Dominican monastery was sequestrated in 1832, following the failed Polish November Uprising, and the church of the Old Catholics was disbanded in 1852.[4]

In the second half of the 18th century, Chernobyl became one of the major centers of Hasidic Judaism. The Chernobyl Hasidic dynasty had been founded by Rabbi Menachem Nachum Twersky. The Jewish population suffered greatly from pogroms in October 1905 and in March–April 1919, when many Jews were killed and others were robbed, at the instigation of the Russian nationalist Black Hundreds. In 1920, the Twersky dynasty left Chernobyl, and it ceased to exist as a Hasidic centre.

Since the 1880s, Chernobyl has seen many changes of fortune. In 1898 Chernobyl had a population of 10,800, including 7,200 Jews. In World War I the village was occupied, and in the ensuing Civil War, Chernobyl was fought over by Bolsheviks and Ukrainians. In the Polish–Soviet War of 1919–20, it was taken first by the Polish Army and then by cavalry of the Red Army. From 1921, it was incorporated into the Ukrainian SSR.[4]

Chernobyl city was evacuated soon after the disaster. The base of operations for the administration and monitoring of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone was moved from Pripyat to Chernobyl. Chernobyl currently contains offices for the State Agency of Ukraine on the Exclusion Zone Management and accommodation for visitors. Apartment blocks have been re-purposed as accommodation for employees of the State Agency. Because of regulations implemented to limit exposure, workers in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone are limited in the number of days per week or weeks per month they stay in Chernobyl. Many types of animals live there now and the city has become overgrown. In fact, according to a census that was done over a long period of time, it is estimated that more mammals live there now than before the disaster.[7]

Chernobylite is the name cited by two media sources[9][10] for highly radioactive, unusual and potentially novel crystalline formations found at the Chernobyl power plant after the meltdown. These formations were found in the basement below Reactor No. 4 during an investigation into missing reactor fuel.[11]